Wachovia Books $23.9 Billion Loss

There's a reason they government put 'em down. Wachovia has just
announced a $23.9 billion quarterly loss -- $18.8 billion of
which is the impairment of goodwill. That represents the end of
its $25 billion acquisition of Golden West, back in 2006. Deals
don't get much worse than that. Excluding Goodwill and various
merger expenses, it only lost $4.4 billion.

The two bright spots we can find. Deposits did actually grow
year-over-year, so there's little evidence of a widespread run on
the bank by customers. (But there is
evidence that bigger commercial customers had started to flee
the bank.)

More importantly, the merger is still go with Wells Fargo, slated
to be complete this quarter. Quite a relief.